The Ballad Of Lies: Part 1 (PRIVATE)

Holdac

Registered
TNP Nation
Great Jenovah
Discord
Holdac#3124
Hajnowka, Inowalki. A city of vibrant advertisements, shady entrepreneurs and an infamous, criminal underworld. It seemingly had a brutalist craze in the ‘90s, transforming the entire skyline into a jungle of concrete within several decades. Many corporations would compete with each other over the tallest building, constructing dozens of towers and polluting the art-deco architecture with contemporary styles. It was dubbed “Lighthouse City” for this reason; enormous towers which could be seen from kilometers away because of the advertisement boards and blinking lights. Jolanta Svejnosk was the successful daughter of a wealthy executive, working alongside her family in the petroleum business which dominated the Inowałki economy alongside entertainment and manufacturing. It was a busy cargo port downtown, with workers scrambling to unload and load enormous amounts of containers off the ships to transport across the nation. Jolanta stood on the edge of the port; her heels sitting against the overgrown rock which was cracked with age. Her white, leather coat swayed in the cool, ocean breeze and her shades reflected the sun. Jolanta wore a black glove on her right hand, made with a fur from a rare type of fox found in the Inowałki wilderness. A small mole was right above her scarlet lips, distracting from the beauty of her perfect skin and lucious, blonde hair which swooped down to her shoulders.

“Miss Svejnosk. Your weapons shipment has arrived, I see.” A voice behind her said. Jolanta slowly turned around, pulling down her shades and squinting at the figure approaching. He was wearing a black tuxedo, carrying a yellow file in his left hand. He had an uneven goatee and platinum blonde hair, almost gray when under the sunlight. He switched hands, reaching out for a handshake. Jolanta looked down, raising her hand to his face. It had a large, yellow diamond ring on it encrusted with platinum and titanium. It glimmered in the sun as she raised it, like a thousand blinking flashes from cameras directly in his face. He looked down at the ring, confused before kneeling down and kissing her hand. Jolanta pulled the hand back, pulling the black glove off her other hand and stuffing it into her pocket.

“You’ve done well, Mister Wallace. You can expect your payment tonight. Please, show me the shipment.” Jolanta responded, turning around and beckoning him in a snobby manner. He followed, chasing after Jolanta like a bumblebee after honey. He pointed towards a container which was laid down beside the crane; the words ARGO painted on them in a bold, white paint. A worker stood beside the container, wearing their iconic vest and holding a clipboard; an expression of confusion was clear on his face. Mister Wallace ran up to the man, pushing him away with his hands and telling him to leave. Jolanta followed up to Mister Wallace; her heels clanked on the concrete as she took steps. Mister Wallace struggled to twist open the knob on the shipment, eventually succeeded after several minutes of Jolanta repeatedly yawning out boredom. It snapped open, unveiling a container filled with assault rifles, missiles and other weapons. Jolanta looked inside each wooden container which the weapons sat in, inspecting each one like a child opening presents.

“I wouldn’t touch that, Miss Svejnosk. It’s a I-Z12 missile. Military-grade. Manufactured exclusively by Inowalki contractors. It’s a cluster missile which sprouts into multiple warheads once a certain altitude has been reached. It’s illegal in Inowalki. Tell me, how much is my paycheck?” Mister Wallace asked, pointing at a missile in the wooden box which had a bright red paint job and the emblem of a demon on the side. It sat on a cushion of wood shavings.

“My accountant will handle that information. I will be on my way now, Mister Wallace.” Jolanta responded, gesturing at a truck nearby and smiling at Mister Wallace. He shook his head, shutting the door to the container and making the universal gesture for money.

“I’ll need the money first, Miss. It’s business. I can’t have you running off with twenty tons of illegal arms without any payment.” Mister Wallace responded, slowly hovering his hand over his pocket in which a silver handgun was located. Jolanta reached into the pockets of her coat, quietly pressing a transponder unit to alert all her security in the area.

“Excuse me?” Jolanta chuckled, her Inowalki accent clearly showing as she spoke.

“I made myself clear. I don’t care which family you’re in. I’ll need my money and you’ll get your weapons.” Mister Wallace responded in a cold tone. He pulled out the silver handgun from underneath his tuxedo, pointing it at Jolanta. “If you don’t have the money, I’ll need you to leave. Now.”

“I don’t think you know who I am, Mister Wallace.” Jolanta responded, biting her finger as she spoke and looking at him with cold eyes. It was dead silence in the port, with the exception of the echoes of wind from the metropolis.

“I do, sweetheart. And let me tell you. You either show me the cash, or you leave. If you don’t, I bl— “ Mister Wallace collapsed onto the floor mid-sentence, his pistol flying out of his hands and landing onto the concrete floor beside him. A pool of blood soaked the nearby ground, mixing with dirt and stains of gasoline. A sniper shot. Jolanta walked over to the body, rolling it over with her heel and taking a look at Mister Wallace. A gaping hole was set in between his eyes, coming out from the back of his head. Jolanta turned back, quietly gagging from disgust and rolling the body back into its stomach.

“Come in. Stephan. Shipment ready. Come in.” Jolanta whispered into her earpiece, looking around the dock for any witnesses. A red truck stopped beside Jolanta, attaching itself to the container and pulling it away from the port. Jolanta looked down at the body, pushing it away with her shoe and walking off deeper into the port to meet with her chauffeur outside of the docks.


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

An office in a corporate skyscraper in Hajnowka. Jolanta sat on a comfortable seat, looking out the window into the neon streets as she spoke to a man hidden behind a shadow. It was 12:41 AM and the room reeked of burnt tobacco. Must have been from the silver ashtray on the tabletop, sitting next to a pack of cigarettes. A glass of bourbon was on the table, half-empty with ice at the bottom of it. Jolanta reached for it, shaking it around and taking a long sip before setting it down on the tabletop.

“Could you make this.. Mister Wallace disappeared? From the records, that is.” Jolanta asked, turning her head towards the figure that was in the shadow behind the table. He leaned forward. Jolanta continued: "I know, I know. It's an alias."

“I might. I might not. Why?” He asked, lighting a cigarette. A small inferno illuminated his face in the darkness, showing an old man with a scar across his eye. He was wrinkled and hunched; an example of what age does to humans. Jolanta looked back at the man, shaking her head.

“Kondrat. Cooperate with me, please.” Jolanta said, pointing at him with the finger which her diamond ring sat on. A vibrant advertisement shined light into the dark room, before quickly disappearing into more state propaganda depicting heroic soldiers. “You look terrible.”

“I’m not made of plastic, Miss Jolanta.” Kondrat responded, cackling. It sounded like somebody choking instead of laughing. A horrible sound for Jolanta’s delicate ears. It’s what a pack of cigarettes a day for two decades does to you. Jolanta twisted around to Kondrat.

“Cut the bullshit, Kondrat. Can you do it?” Jolanta asked with irritation. A monorail train passed by the office as she spoke, sparks flying off the rails as it passed by. An advertisement for a movie was plastered across the side of one of the train compartments, tattered from the wind and rain in the metropolis. Kondrat leaned forward towards Jolanta, looking at her with one eye. Jolanta stood up from her seat, walking over to a table and pouring herself more bourbon from the crystal bottle. All the ice cubes had melted from before, leaving a layer of water at the bottom.

“I can. I can.” Kondrat responded, drawing on the cigarette and tapping it over the ashtray. Jolanta twisted around uncomfortably in her seat, tapping her fingers on the tabletop. He let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head in disappointment and turning on his desktop.
 
Last edited:
“Take a look. It’s a Wojntach shipment. A corpo tried to sell it to me.” Jolanta said, tapping the screen on her phone and sliding it towards Kondrat on the tabletop. It displayed a picture of the weapons shipment that Jolanta stole in a warehouse. Kondrat reached for the phone with his frail hands, looking at the picture. He looked at it with a blank expression and blinked repeatedly, hitting himself on the side of the head multiple times. Kondrat pushed his chair back, looking underneath the table and fishing for a pair of contact lenses in the drawer. “AR lenses? From Slazack, I assume?”

“Wojntach? ARGO Wojntach? As in, the weapons manufacturer and private military contractor?” Kondrat looked up from the screen, staring at Jolanta. He raised his hands above his head, shouting curses to himself. “Miss Svejnosk. Bitch. Wojntach is the most powerful mega-corporation in Inowalki. It has an entire army to enforce their will. Fuck, the government even backs them. I bet those assholes are already onto our tail right now.”

“I know a lot of people who would pay millions for the tech that we stole. Especially that missile. That.” Jolanta pressed her finger on a missile in the picture, zooming in to show Kondrat. He examined the missile, quietly reading the words on the symbol. Jolanta stood from her seat and walked over to the window, which provided a panoramic view of the urban canyons below. It was dark in the room, with the only light coming from Kondrat’s cigarette, the advertisements on the tower across from the office and the computers on the desk. Jolanta was still wearing the outfit from when she met with Mister Wallace, with old bloodstains on her shoes which had dried up hours ago. “I just need you to.. erase this Mister Wallace out of the nation’s systems and delete the surveillance footage of the deal. Wojntach doesn’t know of this yet, but they will soon. You’re the Head of Bezpieczeństwo for one of the largest banking mega-corporations in Inowalki. You can access these files. All I need you to do is rid of them.”

“If this gets out, we’ve bought ourselves a war. The I-Z12 missile is one of the most sophisticated military devices in history. That. It’s red.” Kondrat said, pointing at the paint in the picture with the tip of a pen. He looked up at Jolanta, beckoning for her to come to his side. He was typing on his keyboard. “You are carrying a nuclear weapon. It’s red. It means that it’s nuclear.”

“I- I’m sorry, what? My informants didn’t tell me this.” Jolanta questioned Kondrat, stepping away from the window and shuffling towards the computers.

“I am sure of it. Let me tell you this. I’ll help you. But only because I owe a debt to your family. If I do this. I owe nothing, correct?” Kondrat demanded. He spit the cigarette out, carelessly throwing it into the ashtray and burying it in the pile. Jolanta sat on the tabletop, looking down at the computers.

“You know I can’t do that, Kondrat. I may be a Svejnosk, but I can’t.” Jolanta shook her head. Kondrat looked at Jolanta with a saddened expression, shaking his head to mock Jolanta. He scoffed at the woman, slowly pointing to a red telephone on a table with a vase in the office. It was covered in dust, clearly not having been used in a very long time. A paper labelled the telephone. It read: The House.

“My girl, I can’t help you then. I’ll have to sell you out right here and now, in fact. Wojntach is only a call awa-”

“Fine. Fine. I can figure something out. Just fix this mess. Don’t let it get out.” Jolanta quickly said, cutting off Kondrat from finishing his statement. Kondrat smiled at Jolanta, chuckling to himself. He looked underneath his desk, opening a drawer which was filled with keys. He fished in the drawer until he found one, blowing the dust off and neatly placing it into the side of his computer. It began loading a security console. Kondrat looked at a notecard taped to the side of his screen, typing the words on the notecard into the username and password sections of the console.

“I need to make a call. I’ll be back.” Jolanta said, picking up her stuff from the chair and beelining out of the room as Kondrat was finishing up.
 
Back
Top